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As a journalist I have written about social issues and international affairs for the Guardian, the Independent, New Internationalist, Huffington Post, Equal Times and the Big Issue in the North, among other titles. I now work at the University of Leeds as a qualified careers professional, helping international students fulfill their career ambitions

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(Originally published by the Big Issue in the North)
The family of a 41-year-old nurse from Stockport who died in
2005 are to be granted a fresh inquest following their investigation into the strange
circumstances surrounding her death and relationship with the former head of
ethics of the British Medical Association (BMA).
After an original inquest into the death of Carole Myers
returned an open verdict, the Felstead family obtained her psychiatric and
medical records which revealed she had undergone “recovered memory” therapy
sessions on the NHS from the age of 21.
During these sessions she was given psychotropic drugs and was
encouraged to believe she had been abused by her parents who she alleged were
serial murderers and members of a satanic cult.
Her new memories also included claims that she had been
abused by two members of the Tory cabinet at the Conservative party
headquarters.
Although these allegations were later shown to be false, their
accuracy was never questioned by t…

Few climate activists were surprised when aYouGovpoll
published in late September comfirmed what many already suspected: the British
public are not particularly worried about global warming. A minority of 39%
responded that they believed climate change posed a serious problem affecting
the world as a whole compared to 61% for poverty and 77% for terrorism. When
asked which issue they believed presented the gravest global threat only 6% of
those polled selected climate change.
Contrast this with the words of UN General Secretary Ban
Ki-Moon who, just two days after the poll was released,warnedthat
humanity has never in its history faced a challenge greater than that of
confronting climate change. “The human, environmental and financial cost of
climate change is fast becoming unbearable,” he declared in his opening address
to the UN climate summit in New York. A month later the Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change (IPCC) published its m…